I know that some of you may cringe at my asking this, but I need some suggestions of good videos for my girls to watch. I really limit what and how much they watch, but we do watch videos about 3 times a week. And we have a 12 hour drive to visit family so we watch videos then also. The girls are 5 and 2. What videos does your family like that are educational and as little twaddle as possible.
I dont know about the Twaddle part, but mine like the LeapFrog videos. They are educational. Also, I have recently seen a set of DVD’s based on favorite Childrens books from Scholastic. I think its called Treasury of Storybook Classics. I don’t know if these are good or not as I haven’t watched them, but I have been considering them. My children also like Curious George and Madeline.
If you can get them, my kids love Zaboomafoo (sp?) – It is a nature program for kids that talks about different animals, including seeing the animals in their native areas. It is very educational. It does have some catchy songs too. The animal experts are generally talking to a lemur (well, a lemur puppet….) who also talks to them. It has a lot of humour in it too. (They generally go to the closet to get their stuff for a trip – and the stuff almost always falls on top of them – my kids love it!). The one bit I don’t like and is twaddly is usually zaboomafoo (the lemur) will have a little related story in “zaboo land” – which is claymation nonesense generally – I wish they didn’t have that part…) But the rest of it I consider very good, and worth putting up with the 1-2 minute zaboo land story….
I don’t know if you’d consider it twaddle or not. My dc (ages 5 and 2) love Word World. I think my 5yo taught himself to read by watching it and Between the Lions. Target has a few of the segments on DVD, but the best way to get them would be to tape them off PBS. (If you start now, you may have 12 hours worth by Christmas, or you could watch the same one 2-3 times). Oh, and you could tape Between the Lions too. Both of mine love it, too.
We watch very little tv/videos (once per week and sometimes on long trips), but my kids 8, 5 & 2 all enjoy
Scholastic Treasury of Storybooks mentioned above These are basically someone else reading a classic story and are slow like the book. Some stories are better than others, but in general, they are good.
Moody Science Videos
Nest Videos (Bible Characters and historical Characters)
Blue Planet & Planet Earth are other favorites
Old Disney movies – Old Yeller, Apple Dumpling Gang, etc.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll check some of these out from the library and see what they think. I’m particularly interested in the nature one. We have not seen that, but it would be right up our alley. We have the Leapfrog videos and LOVE them. We already have some Curious George, Word World, Sid the Science Kid, and all of the Magic Schoolbus that I recorded from TV. We like these, but are getting tired of them and need some new ones. I do not have access to a TV this year to record them and replace what we have. We have the Nest videos, but can only watch a few because my daughter (5) is easily scared and many of these scare her still. We have gotten past that with a few that we have watched several times with me sitting right next to her and reassuring her. So I try not to force these too much.
There are some clips of zoboomafoo on the sprout website (which I’m not sure what that website is…) – it might give you an idea if you want to try to track it down or not….
Hi, I wanted to add some of our favorites! We allow the boys to watch Bible/Educational DVD’s. And of course some old favorites every once in a while. We absolutely love all the Hermie the Caterpillar DVD’s –not only do you learn a valuable lesson but they are so funny! Also, Jay Jay the Jet Plane have great Bible lessons too!
On the Farm DVD’s have Bible lessons with the animals learning by their mistakes. And applying God’s word in their life. These are great also! —- Also, the Bible on DVD by Stephen Elkins. It goes through the OT and NT with songs at the end of each story. The words of the song show up on the screen! This is a long DVD…you don’t have to watch all at the same time..but is great on trips!
We too have 2 of the Scholastic Storybook DVD’s and they are good too!
This is not a DVD but we have found a great Audio CD of great Bible lessons with verse. They are called Christopher Churchmouse story CD’s. They do have single CD’s. But we have the two Story Collections. They provide great listening for trips…the voices for the mice are wonderful and the lessons that Christopher learns are very valuable. Each story lasts for about 10min?? Several on each CD….for example one story is about Christopher telling lies and learns that God says in His commandments not to lie. MY then 4 and 6 yr old loves them..they are 5 and 7 now and still love them! Cannot emphasize how good they are for trips..we travel a lot!
I was hestitant to post this question, but am so glad that I did. There have been so many great options thrown out there. This will be great for the Christmas lists for grandparents.
Hi, some great suggestions! How about alternating videos with audio-only? Really stretches the imagination, and if they’re going to be needing to be entertained for 12 hours straight, they’ll probably need a bit of a “break” from the fast pacing of most videos. —-Sue
We do try to incorporate some audio books and also have quiet time where they can color, look at books, etc. with just Christian music CD’s. But the youngest is 2 and has made listening to audio books difficult. We are working to incorporate them and she will listen to them longer than before. Our goal is to work towards very little video, even on long trips. But these 12 hours trips will hopefully only happen 2 more times before this summer when we ill move much closer to family and this becomes much less of an issue. So we are trying to just get through this year and this stage of life. 🙂